Ethical Decision-making in Nursing Care at High Risk for Ethical Complaints of Professional Nurses in Private Hospitals

Abstract

Abstract
Ethical decision making in high-risk nursing care is a major problem for professional nurses, especially for those who work in private hospitals. This is due to the reason that patients and relatives expect excellent services from health care providers. The survey research aimed to study the perceptions of ethical decision making in high-risk nursing activities, which could create uncomfortable feelings for nursing personnel in private hospitals.
The sample population consisted of a total of 328 professional nurses working in private hospitals in Bangkok Metropolis using the multiple-stage sampling technique to collect general demographic information as well as specific information about ethical decision making in high-risk nursing care areas. Data were analyzed employing statistical tools such as descriptive statistics, frequency distributions, arithmetic mean, and standard deviation. Correlations were then made between age difference and work experience factors to find out whether they could influence ethical decisions on
high-risk nursing care aspects using f-test and one-way ANOVA statistical tools. The research indicated that ethical decisions made on high-risk nursing care aspects caused the nurses concerned to be uncomfortable in nursing practices, leading to workrelated accidents such as falls and other work-related problems and issues such as inadequate management of drugs and medicine use by patients, wrong assessments of patients’ illness symptoms, and even nurses’ erratic behaviors. However, when comparing factors such as age difference and work experience as they could influence ethical decisions on high-risk nursing care aspects, no significant difference was found (0.5).